AURORA — A fired Aurora police officer who allegedly kneed an unruly suspect in the head, broke her right eye socket and then omitted her injuries from his police report is seeking reinstatement.

The city and the lawyers for former officer James Waselkow made their cases Monday at the start of a hearing in front of Aurora’s Civil Service Commission.

Waselkow was fired in June 2010 for an incident at a home in February 2009 in which he was found to have used excessive force.

But attorneys for Waselkow say that he is being made a scapegoat and that his punishment was too severe.

Waselkow responded twice to a home on Wheeling Street in the early morning hours of Feb. 12, 2009. The second time was for a report of an assault.

At the home, Waselkow and fellow officer Robert Brown encountered Carla Meza in the basement of her home and handcuffed her hands behind her back. She was believed to have assaulted her girlfriend.

As the officers struggled to secure her, according to Aurora Assistant City Attorney Julie Heckman, Meza yelled at the officers, “You want some of this . . . .?”

Waselkow spun her around and took her to the ground in the garage of the home Meza shared with her girlfriend. Waselkow then told her, according to Heckman: “You want to act like a man. I’m going to show you a man.”

Sometime between being in the basement and later in the garage, Waselkow kneed Meza in the face, the city believes. Heckman said Waselkow told another officer at the scene, “She turned on me so I kneed her in the face.”

Attorney Brian Reynolds, who is representing Waselkow, said his client admitted to using force against Meza but did not intentionally kick or knee her.

He said crime-scene investigators noted that there was too little blood at the scene to support Meza’s version of events.

“Ms. Meza’s story is not true,” Reynolds said. “The physical evidence is simply inconsistent with her claims.”

After conducting a criminal investigation, Aurora didn’t recommend any charges be filed against the officers. The Adams County district attorney agreed.

However, Aurora conducted an internal investigation and found that Waselkow had violated several department directives, including those involving use of physical force, reporting of physical force and arresting a suspect without a warrant.

Waselkow was given the option of resigning and if he didn’t, the department would “sustain a finding of untruthfulness,” Reynolds said, which would be grounds for dismissal.

Waselkow refused, and he was fired. “These chiefs looked at that as treason,” Reynolds said.

Brown agreed to a smaller suspension as he was not accused of causing the injuries.

Meza filed a civil lawsuit against Waselkow, Brown and the city in February of last year. The suit, filed in Adams County District Court, alleged that the officers violated Meza’s civil rights and that she was discriminated against because she is a lesbian.

The suit was settled for $85,000, and it was dismissed two months later with prejudice, meaning Meza cannot refile the same claim.

Carlos Illescas had been with The Denver Post since 1997 before leaving in June 2016. He had worked as a reporter covering the suburbs and was a weekend editor. He previously worked for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Aspen Daily News and graduated from Colorado State University in 1991.

Spain came under repeated attack starting Thursday in what authorities called linked terrorist incidents, when a driver swerved a van into crowds in Barcelona’s historic Las Ramblas district, killing more than a dozen people and injuring scores of others. Early Friday, an attempted attack unfolded in a town down the coast

If there’s one superhero character whose rise might be most tied to the events of World War II, it is Captain America, who emerged from the minds of legends Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and sprung forth from an iconic 1941 debut cover on which Cap smacks Hitler right in the kisser.

A customer dining at Washington’s Oceanaire restaurant noticed an unusual line at the bottom of his receipt: “Due to the rising costs of doing business in this location, including costs associated with higher minimum wage rates, a 3% surcharge has been added to your total bill.”